Dr. Feroz Bashari upended his life to come to the United States.
“We were worried about our lives. And we could have been killed if we were left behind. Tortured, arrested, or whatever. We don't know what's going to happen. But thank God, we made it,” Bashari said.
Bashari is a father of five. And he’s made a new life for himself in Oklahoma – where he’s resettled. He’s working as a lecturer at the University of Oklahoma and a communications specialist for the Oklahoma City Afghan Legal Network.
When the Taliban took control of the government, Bashari was working as a media advisor at the U.S. Embassy there. When United States forces evacuated in August 2021, his family was on the last plane out of Kabul.
“It was tough. It wasn’t easy. But I was very happy because I left Afghanistan,” Bashari said.
After Kabul fell, 1,800 Afghan refugees were resettled in Oklahoma. Jennifer Hund is the Refugee Services Coordinator for the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. She said refugees like Bashari were given a two-year temporary status as parolees after being evacuated from Afghanistan. During the last two years, the parolees needed to apply for asylum, but Hund said there is a significant backlog in processing the applications.
“Some people have been waiting six, seven, eight, nine months. Everything's pending,...
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